Micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) switches are used in many applications. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,917,138 issued Jul. 12, 2005 to Clark T.-C. Nguyen describes forming a small, low-cost micro-mechanical RF channel selector with surface micromachined polysilicon resonators/filters. Even though Nguyen stresses the importance of having high Q in filters, polysilicon resonators are known to have low quality factors at ambient pressure, thus requiring costly vacuum packaging. The resulting size of the packaged filters makes packaging the filters in a large array difficult.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0158905 by Kubena et al. describes one method for fabricating a quartz nanoresonator which can be integrated on a substrate, along with other electronics and is incorporated herein by reference. However, that application does not teach how to fabricate integrated MEMS switches and filters.
What is needed is a method of making integrated MEMS switches and filters that do not experience significant damping and quality degradation even in air. Also there is a need for a method for seamless integration of MEMS switches with quartz filters to reduce their size and cost. The embodiments of the present disclosure answer these and other needs.